The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy maintains this blog to disseminate information relevant to astronomers who identify as women. If you have an idea for a blog post or topic, please submit to wia-blog at lists.aas.org.
The views expressed on this site are not necessarily the views of the CSWA, the AAS, its Board of Trustees, or its membership.

1. Evaluating How We Present Role Models in STEMFrom: Laura Trouille via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

Univ. of Michigan social psychologists Diana Betz and Denise Sekaquaptewa recently published a thought-provoking article that I thought might be of interest to our readers -- "My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math and Science Role Models Demotivate Young Girls."

I would, ideally, like to keep politics out of this blog. However, given that this is an election year, politics seems to be butting its way into everything, so here goes.

The CSWA works hard to advocate for women in science. One issue that comes up over and over again is the problem of balancing career and family -- an issue for any working mother, really. A key to that balance is the ability to plan when and how many children to have -- something that many of us, like myself, take for granted.

So when a Republican-controlled House Committee convenes an all-male panel to discuss coverage for birth control, it's hard not to take it a little personally. It's bad enough that dependent care coverage is a real issue for many young astronomers, particularly grad students and postdocs, but to not even have coverage for birth control?

Back to top.3. Why all astronomy departments should think of themselves as women's astronomy departmentsFrom: Bekki Dawson via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

[This week's guest blogger is Bekki Dawson. Bekki Dawson is a graduate student in the Astronomy Department at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the dynamics of planetary systems.]

H. Kim Bottomly, president of Wellesley College, recently wrote a Washington Post editorial "Why all colleges should think of themselves as women's colleges." President Bottomly focused on the mission of universities to produce women political leaders, but many of her arguments could apply to producing women scientists. As women's college alumna and graduate student at a co-educational institution, I began to wonder if the status of women in astronomy would improve if every astronomy department (or physics department or research center) considered itself a "women's astronomy department."

Back to top.4. German female astronomers, at home and abroadFrom: Barbara Rojas Ayala via CSWA Facebook page

I found this article in today's arxiv, about the career situation of female astronomer is Germany: "We survey the job situation of women in astronomy in Germany and of German women abroad and review indicators for their career development. Our sample includes women astronomers from all academic levels from doctoral students to professors, as well as female astronomers who have left the field. We find that networking and human support are among the most important factors for success. Experience shows that students should carefully choose their supervisor and collect practical knowledge abroad. We reflect the private situation of female German astronomers and find that prejudices are abundant, and are perceived as discriminating. We identify reasons why women are more likely than men to quit astronomy after they obtain their PhD degree. We give recommendations to young students on what to pay attention to in order to be on the successful path in astronomy."

The Statistical Research Center has published the spring 2012 set of Physics Trends flyers. These are printable flyers intended for display. The new flyers can be downloaded from our web site at: www.aip.org/statistics/trends/phystrends.html

This set of flyers depicts:

The starting salaries for recent physics bachelor's employed in 6 parts of the economy

The award is designed to recognize and enhance outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career, and to provide opportunities for her to present these achievements to others through public lectures in the spirit of Maria Goeppert Mayer. The award consists of $2,500 plus a $4,000 travel allowance to provide opportunities for the recipient to give lectures in her field of physics at four institutions and at the meeting of the Society at which the award is bestowed and a certificate citing the contributions made by the recipient. Find more info at http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/awards/goeppert-mayer.cfm

Back to top.8. NASA internships for students From: WIPHYS, April 25, 2012

Deadline is May 31

NASA offers fall and spring semester paid internships for undergraduate and graduate students. Internships are in a variety of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines as well as business and finance. The deadline for fall semester internship applications is May 31. Interested students can apply at:

Rationale: For centuries, theories of planet formation were guided exclusively by our solar system. However, the discovery of planets orbiting other stars (exoplanets) in the past two decades has demonstrated that nature often produces planetary systems quite different from our own, neither anticipated by nor well explained by the current theories of solar system formation and dynamics. The diversity of planetary system architectures (the masses and orbital arrangements of planets) has confronted astronomers with many new challenges and reinvigorated the fields of planet formation and orbital dynamics. Among these challenges are planetary systems with multiple planets in close-in orbits, highly eccentric orbits, and planets in binary star systems. In this one week program, scientists from the fields of planetary science, celestial mechanics, astronomy and astrophysics will meet to discuss new developments in the field of extrasolar multi-planet systems. The goal of our workshop is to provide an environment where these scientists can present new ideas, discuss their implications for identifying the most important problems in the field and chart the field's future direction.

Practical Details: The meeting will be held either February 9-15 or February 10-16, 2013. We anticipate nearly 100 participants. The Aspen Center for Physics will coordinate applications, registration and housing. We will update the meeting website with information about how to apply, registration and housing as these details become available. In the meantime, you may see the ACP website for further information about registration, housing and day care for previous winter meetings. Young scientists, women and underrepresented minorities are all encouraged to apply.